The Double Refuge ⏯ Systems
A Friend in High Places
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In Jesus you have a true Friend. A Friend more faithful and powerful than any you've ever known. A Friend for life. And death. A Friend who controls the universe with his Father, who's also your friend. Or, rather, He's the Father of your Friend. So He loves you and cares for you. But He can be strict. He controls the universe and keeps immaculate books on everything. It seems better to stay closer to your Friend than to his Father, who sees everything you're thinking. Like that time Jimmy and you broke into a stereo shop and made off with two Bose speaker systems. Your friend, on the other hand, will forgive you, and doesn’t keep tabs.
The Father also knows that you've been looking at that girl, the one with the olive skin and the soft curve of her neck. He doesn’t give any sign that He knows who you're looking at. But you suspect He knows that you're not just looking at your girlfriend. He's watching you. Always. This can be unnerving, but in time you get used to it. The certainty that you're not alone is unnerving, but also comforting. No more anomie or mis-en-abyme. No more French terms.
Your Friend's a rock in times of trouble. He's the Traveller who travels with you now and forever. He's your best Friend. Unlike Jimmy, who buggered off when you were in prison for stealing two Bose stereo systems. Who buggered off with one of the speaker systems and your girlfriend, the one with the ivory skin and green eyes.
This new Friend has never abandoned you. In fact He found you when you abandoned yourself. He saw you coming out of the prison and followed you. He saw you when you got the speaker system out of your stash and went to the liquor store to buy two cases of Johnny Walker. He saw you when you were in a drunken stupor and found yourself in the bed of some girl and couldn’t even remember her name. She was kind and sweet, with olive skin and luminous brown eyes, the colour of forgiveness itself. You felt so guilty you couldn’t even look her in the face. He followed you to your home where you stared at the blank wall for two hours and then threw away the bottles and the hookas and the pills. He heard you say to yourself that you wanted to clean up your act.
He walked with you when you were followed by the police and the tax man. You weren't used to scrutiny, but now you've got into the habit of having nothing to hide. When the stereo system broke, you tossed it into the bin in the back alley. Now it’s as if nothing ever happened. It's like you were handed a clean slate. It's like when the correctional system sent you the news two years ago that your criminal record was expunged. Poof! you were as good as new.
And He'll walk with you when the final moment comes, and you're staring Death in the face.
Now Death isn’t telling bedtime stories anymore. He nudges his cold sickle against your rib and you remember how Adam felt when he was pushed out the gate. There’s a swollen scab where a rib used to be. The nurse is already attending another man, with a scraggy beard and broken sandals. She reminds you of that other girl, the one with the sacred heart, but that was long gone, lost in the thickets of memory. Your memory only points backwards. What's ahead of you is what's got you worried.
You stop in your tracks: a dark wood, a leopard barring your way. It's ready to pounce. But your Friend is still at your side.
Gustave Doré's 1857 illustrations to the beginning of Dante's Inferno.
Storm clouds are on the horizon. The sky is closing in. The cold metal of the blade is digging at your side.
Your body's falling apart, in ways that you were never aware it ever worked. Your right arm's stiff, but you can still feel the staff. You keep walking. The rod hovers somewhere, probably near the girl you left behind, the one with no name. Somewhere near the garbage bin that was your life. Somewhere near the speakers that are long gone. They're long gone. The staff comforts you, and you decide to forget about the rest. God is merciful.
The black clouds close in. You can no longer see anything. You breathe in the dense smoke. You feel the leopard bite into your jugular.
The particles of your fallen body form a wall and you're stopped in your tracks. You're the wall, dense, black, immobile.
The wall explodes and the fragments burst into clouds of grey and light blue. The clouds break apart and the sun shines through, but this time the sun's green.
You're on a small island in a violet sea. Jimmy’s beside you, telling you that it’s your turn. He saved his own skin, just as you would have done. He's holding up a mescal shooter and looking at you as if you came from Mars.
You look around and see the enigmatic smile of the girl you thought had disappeared. Her legs are smooth and tanned. Olive. Her foot nudges your calf. Her name is Mary.
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Next: ⏯ "Open Your Heart" 2